Brain Bubbles

Expressions of a caffiene regulated brain.

baby

Monday, January 31, 2005


Ok, turn your head 90 degrees to the left the head is on top, facing upwards. If you look closely you can see the little chin and nose. Those little circles are where the limb 'buds' i.e. arms and legs are starting to form. It was amazing to see the heartbeat flashing on the screen. Around 22 Feb, the hubby and I will be going for a new special scan (totally non-invasive and will not require the removal of clothing!!) that allows us to see all the internal organs and also to determine the gender of the child. Do we have any bets on boy or girl?? I'd love to hear what you guys/gals think!!? Posted by Hello

Thursday, January 27, 2005

Milestone

My first Dr's appointment was today. Oh my god, it was great, amazing, and at the same time hugely embarrassing too!! Any scan before 12 weeks is 'internal'. So all ya ladies out there know what that means! Ugh, considering it was my first visit to a 'chick doctor', and I pretty much knew what to expect, I don't think that you can ever mentally prepare yourself fully for your first 'exam'. Eck eck. The doc was completely professional, and totally did her best to make me feel comfortable, but how comfortable can you really ever be with fug all clothing on except for a hospital gown and a friggin probe up your you know what. All I want to do know is go home have a nice hot bath, put my jammies on, and pull the duvet over my head. I'll get over it I know, but probably not today! p.s. now that I'm finished talking about ME, ME, ME, I thought I'd let you all know that the baby is absolutely fine, developing well and perfect size for how 'pregnant' I am. Now I'm off home to show the hubby the picture. (what he didn't go with you? you all ask...are you kidding me, like he needed to be there for a pap and boob job too? No Way!)

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

Ho hum

I'm off to meet some corporate clients today. A part of a travel agents job that I absolutely hate. The reason being is that you usually go and meet some PA, who's suddenly discovered that she's not at the bottom of the food chain anymore, and generally assumes when you don't respond to an email within five minutes that it's obviously because you are far too busy painting your toenails or chatting about your weekend plans. I have just had enough of all that cr*p, its exactly why I left my last job. Anyway, I've been here doing leisure bookings for the last two weeks, got suckered into handling this corporate client and now they want to meet me. Gaaah!! Why can't I have a nice extremely high paying job that requires me to have ADSL at home, takes about 10 minutes of my day and for the rest requires me to surf the web whenever I feel like it?!! Does anybody out there have a fabulous job offer for me?

Monday, January 24, 2005

Thanks everyone!

Hey I just saw that I had 8 whole comments on my cat picture post! All those lovely birthday greetings. 8 comments must be like a record for my blog - woo-hoo!!! Thanks to Michele for calling me and for the great pressie. Mary Lou - thank you so much for the card all the way from the US of A. Leslie thanks again for the birthday greetings, I am really touched. Joe - hey thanks for stopping by and for the birthday greetings!! Pixy- thanks too for stopping by and for the birthday wishes!

Horror

Well, imagine my horror, upon reading a recently purchased baby book, that the Stork, is no longer the preferred method of delivering a baby (!) I am starting to think, that the less I know about all the 'procedures', the better off I will be. Two key words are starting to describe my preferred method of delivering a baby. OBLIVIOUS and DRUGGED. VERY VERY DRUGGED. Exactly a week ago, a close friend of mine had her second baby. The onset of her contractions was so fast, that the baby was starting to crown* whilst her husband drove like a mad man through the darkened streets of Cape Town at around midnight. Needless to say by the time she got to the hosipital there was 'no time for drugs, no time for an epidural, just start pushing'. *crown: the babies head was starting to stick out of her 'you know what'. Had that been me, I would have been threatening a severe lawsuit against the medical facility if they didn't get an anaethetist 'immediately'!!! So, thus I have chosen the elective caesar method where you're scheduled two weeks before your due date, to have a calm, quick 10 minute surgery and then four fabulous days recovering in hospital before you have to take the baby home and wonder how the hell to turn this screaming purple thing, into a well-behaved adult. The unwanted cries from the MIL and SIL about how 'natural is much easier' is falling on my non-existent ears. The fact that the SIL actually had a caesar less than 3 years ago seems to have been erased from her own memory. I had to remind the MIL that her last 'easy natural birth was my husband was 34 years ago, and that the memory of her 36 hour labour with him might have dulled somewhat. Frankly I will deal far better with a scar at my bikini line, than I will deal with a torn doo-dah. I don't care that it takes longer to heal, it's less friggin invasive and less mortifying. Thank god I have a chick doctor. As it is I am going for my first appointment EVER with her on Thursday, I am hoping that this will prepare me for the many debut's that my doo-dah will have to make in public in future. Why, for the love of god, did they phase out the stork?

Thursday, January 20, 2005


Ever have one of those days where you're extremely busy, and then you suddenly realise that it's been completely unproductive?

 Posted by Hello

Wednesday, January 19, 2005


Celebrity scraprooms...oi. Does someone really need that much cardstock?

Of course they do, especially if you're an amazing scrapper like Becky Higgins here. Now how do you propose I convince the hubby that I need an entire room devoted to scrapping, when it's neither my job, nor even earns me money, but costs colossal sums of money instead!

As for an update on the dog status, the f*cktard neighbors insurance company contacted us, and they will be paying us out shortly. I made a rather shocking discovery yesterday, in that I saw the f*cktards from a distance getting into their car, and guess what, not only do these people have dogs, but also small children. Holy guacamole! If they can't be trusted with dogs, I don't even want to think about their poor kids. Besides that, but the fact that these people are infecting the gene pool with their stupidity may actually be more disturbing than anything else. (can anyone out there tell that I am still peeved at the whole situation? I still want an abject apology from them, but it doesn't look like I'm going to get one...oh well, I guess I'll leave it up to the universe to sort them out...hey, Zeus! where did I put the lightning bolt maker thingy?) Posted by Hello

Monday, January 17, 2005


Reading Leslie's post about music over at 'Critter Chick', reminded me of a song that I wanted to download from our local digital download haven. I am so glad that the SA music retail industry has managed to jump on the digital bandwagon, and start to offer cheap legal downloads. Although I think it could still be even cheaper I am really happy with the options that www.musica.co.za give us, free 30 second clips, stream for a mere 10c or download the song and license for about R9.99. What I like about this is where normally a whole cd costs you between R129.00 to R150, and maybe you only like 50% of the songs, this way, you can download say 10 songs for R99.00 and burn a cd that has 100% of your favourites on it.

Alternatively of course, you could stream it 10 times a day for 5 days until you are sick of it, and it's only cost you like R5. So far I've only purchased two which are absolutely awesome (and I don't want the rest of the cd), they are 'Canned heat' by Jamiroquai and this song, 'Beauty on the Fire' by Natalie Imbruglio. Posted by Hello

Back again

I am still temping here at my ticketing office, and have decided that it's actually a really nice place to work. Even though it's further from home, the work is at a nice steady pace (not insane as in my previous job) and the staff are all really nice gals. The fact that they are ok with me working from 8h30 until 14h00, and I'll still earn what I earned working out of the hubby's office, plus an extra basic salary means that I'll be earning 2 thirds more than before and working less hours...it's a no brainer. So it looks like for now I'll be here for the next six months, working reduced hours, and then going back to the hubby's offices in the afternoon for an hour of email checking, and blogging as usual :) I am amazed by my reaction to the lack of blogging that I've had to face last week - I actually have like withdrawal symptoms!! Anyway, I'll probably post more when I get back to the hubby's offices this afternoon. See ya later folks.

Friday, January 14, 2005

Running around - mad hatter stuff

HI Everyone Sorry for the long silence. I have been working from 8 till 14h00 at my ticketing agency this week, and will be doing that for the next month. Usually this means that I am too tired to drag myself back to my usual office to check email and blog to my hearts content. It's been so busy here, and hence my lack of time to blog. I also don't have hello downloaded on this computer so no pictures for awhile. Unless I can find time to download it and hide the icon in a folder somewhere!! Okay speak to you on Monday!!

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

The response...

Herewith the response that took our fucktard 'up the road' neighbors a whole 7 days to write...dang they must be slow. You will see my sarcastic comments (in purple) next to their stuff... Dear Mr X (insert our last name) A cheque will be placed into your postbox before end of business on Monday, 10 January 2005. (Hah!! An admission of guilt!!) What a sad state of affairs when one has to resort to callous ways of resolving an issue, and one cannot approach your neighbours in person. It is sorry to see that there are such vindictive people in our neighborhood. (oh like this letter was shoved in our post box was any less cowardly or callous?Oh, and perhaps you misunderstand the use of the word vindictive, perhaps we should buy you a dictionary). Your dog is not the only one that sustained injuries, besides bitemarks, our 'proudly South African (proudly my ass) boerboel (your spelling is wrong fucktard) also sustained an injury to his hind leg and body, obviously from your incessant kicking - which several builders as well as one of my neighbhors witnessed. (good, I only wish my husband had smashed his head in, and I'm sorry to hear that his wounds are so light. Perhaps you can also explain why in the 3 days our dog received treatment at our local vet - your dog received none, perhaps you like wounds to heal naturally? Would this be the builders who only arrive for work at 8h30am, whilst we were there at 7am? Would this be the same builder who on a previous occasion had to throttle your dog with his belt in order to pull him off someone else's dog in our neighborhood? The neighbour who saw the incident, this would be the same one that has written us a letter stating how she supports us wholeheartedly having your menacing dogs taken away by the SPCA, because you are such fucktard owners). There was much you could have done to prevent the fight as well (yes like having complained about your lack of security around your property before we left on our walk), like getting your dog to sit or lie down (what? instead of allowing him to defend himself from a viscious unprovoked attack?) - this is a submissive sign and would almost always lead to a positive outcome, not screaming like a mad man and or kicking either dog also helps. (shove your submissive signs right up your ass darling, and had we not screamed at you, you may have well been so stupid as to not realise it was your dog attacking us. Oh, and by the way, had we not kicked, your husband would have had to beat your dog twice as much with that lead pipe in order to get him off our dog). Anyone with a keen interest in dog behaviour would have known this. (I'm sorry - you wouldn't know dog behaviour if it came up and bit you on the ass - which hopefully your dog will do to you one day, if we can't have him removed first). I hope your dog was bought with the right intentions and not just for it's fashionable and wow status. (Thank you for the compliment, we do believe our dog is beautiful too, how sweet of you to notice). In my opinion those breeds belong in the climate that they were bred for. It is a dis-service to to the dog to keep it in our hot climate. But that is just my personal oppinion. (Well sweety, shove that personal oppinion right up your ass with your submissive tips. If you knew ANYTHING at all about Alaskan Malamutes, you'd know that the ones bred in South Africa ARE bred for this climate and their coats are even lighter than those of Alsations and German Shepards whom you will see in every secfond house in South Africa. So basically go and F*ck yourself.) End of letter. Later yesterday afternoon we received not the cheque as promised but a handwritten scrawl shoved in our post box on how they were 'with-holding payment' until their 'insurance company had investigated'. Well, we were on the phone to our lawyer friend ( a close family friend who is one of the top lawyers in the country) who just laughed down the phone and said he would write us a complete legal letter demanding payment within 14 days or they would be summonsed to court, and not just small claims court. Once he has written his letter, we have the right to sue them in open court, and if they don't cough up the cash, and we get a written apology, we are going to do JUST that. Our lawyer says we have a clean cut case, and with all the photographic evidence, since I drove round to their house and openly took photos of their lack of adequate security, and also the distance that the dog ran to attack our dogs. Along with this we have 4 other neighbors two who live in their street, who are providing us with signed letters stating their complaint at how either their dogs have also been attacked, or how they have witnessed these people's neglect of adequate care of their dogs. So my friends, they're going DOWN!!!!

Stay tuned for the 'response' from the fucktard neighbors. Posted by Hello

Monday, January 10, 2005

Neighbourhood Fucktards

Sometimes people really SUCK. Let me provide you with details. There we are, the hubby and I walking our two wonderful dogs on leashes, in our nice quiet neighborhood. We are rounding the last bend to get back the street that leads off our cul de sac. The house on the corner is busy building a wall around their property. They previously had a rather unsightly wooden fence. However since they were in the progress of building a wall, the property was completely open. Their un-neutered Boerbull male dog (approximately 70kg) of dog, takes one look at my beautiful sweet natured Malamute, and decides to attack him and runs 50m up the road to where we are- in full view of the owners who were standing outside putting stuff into their car. I honestly thought he was going to kill our dog. He was a completely nasty and only had the kill instinct in mind. From our previous knowledge of these dogs (these fucktards have a pair of dogs), is that they are NEVER walked, and also only have about 6 square metres of yard in which to exercise. Small yard + no exercise = seriously fu*cked up dogs and fucktard dog owners. The hubby starts yelling at the owners to call their dog off, and defends our dog by kicking the sh*t out of this other dog to try and get our dog out of this fight. This dog doesn't even bat an eyelid, and his owner (fucktard wife) kind of jogs over and tries to pull him off without success. The fucktard husband has to fetch a stick and BEAT his own dog off to get him to stop attacking Navarre. Whilst this is going on, I am screaming somewhere in the background that the 'you stupid f*cking morons should have your stupid f*cking dogs neutered, and grab his f*cking balls if you want him to stop fighting', and other more colorful language. Anyway, so eventually they get their dog away. Do we get an apology? NO, they just disappear into their house like nothing has happened whilst Navarre is standing there bleeding and yelping. Thankfully due to his very thick fur, this dog hadn't managed to get any puncture wounds in Navarres neck and had only managed to sink two bites into his one front leg (I'm pretty sure I saw Navarre get a really good bite onto this dogs ear GO BOY!). Anyway, we rushed him to the vet where they sorted him out, and all the veterinary nurses totally fell in love with him, and professed their undying devotion to his beauty - and vowed to warn all the dog owners who came in that day about these unruly dogs. One of them even offered to act as a character witness for Navarre, to state his well-behavedness, if we wanted to sue these bastard dog owners. Luckily a friend of ours is a lawyer and wrote a letter for us requesting them to pay our vets bill. We even used totally non-threatening language like "regrettably your dog breached it's security, due to your lack of fence, and we would appreciate your prompt settling of our vets bill so that we needn't enforce payment through legal channels." etc. A very nice, civil letter. It takes one whole week before we get so much as a response...shall I post their response tommorrow folks? It's a real Dooozy!!

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Evidence?

Okay, so Michele thinks she has won the argument with this picture...BAH! I say! BAH! Both areas claim the fact that they are the meeting point of the two great oceans, but I say in order to compromise, shall we say that the meeting point is somewhere in between? I am such a friggin diplomat... Posted by Hello

Ahh, a debate rages forth...

Here is another view on Cape Point - isn't it just gorgeous? Posted by Hello Michele sent this to me along with a challenge to my earlier statments about Cape Point being the meeting point of the two great oceans, but since I live closer to it, I decided that I'm right, so there... Anyway, we have managed to agree on the fact that it certainly is the meeting point of the warm and cold currents (the things that define oceans - just hammering my point in). Har har.

Since the review of my blog called for more Cape Town related posts, I decided to oblige and post some pics of my surrounds like I used to a month or two ago. The pic you are looking at is of Cape Point. When the first explorers to this area got this far down the African continent, they proclaimed this to be the southern most point of Africa. However, with the progress of navigational skills and cartography it was discoverd that Cape Agulhas some 200km further east was actually the southern most point. However, Cape Point remains the meeting point of the two great oceans Atlantic and Indian. Living on the peninsula as I do - between these two great oceans I can tell you that there are substantial differences between the two. The Atlantic being colder and rougher, and the indian ocean warmer and more shark infested! Anyway, enough of this discovery channel. See ya later folks. Posted by Hello

I picked this up over at 'Music and Cats' (See my Blogroll for link cos I'm too lazy to link through 'hello'

"Sheryl at paper napkin has declared today De-Lurking Day, which is, as she puts it, "a special day celebrating lurkers, and exhorting you to muster the strength and bravery to click on that comment button and end the deafening silence."

So go on, if you've been visiting and not said hello - now is your opportunity!! Posted by Hello

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

The Weblog Review

I asked TWR to review my site some time back and they came through today with the review. It was quite sweet, and I appreciate the kind words by Tara the reviewer. No one seems to have noticed that I am also a reviewer for TWR...below is the review in full - or check it out on their website at www.theweblogreview.com if you're wanting your site reviewed, within 5 days there is a small fee, but if you can wait a week or two, the service is free! Posted by Hello Brain Bubbles - got a rating of 3.2500 by 1 reviewer from the review staff (out of a possible 5) Brain Bubbles is an almost daily web journal about a travel agent named Valkyrie, who goes by the nickname Van, and her life in Cape Town, South Africa. I was immediately intrigued to see that this blog is from South Africa and because of its locale I expected it to be somewhat political, however, it isn't. Her posts are personal and like her blog's title suggests, they are little "brain bubbles" about the things that are going on in her life and her observations. Recent posts include a heart-wrenching paragraph about her kitty having cat aids and needing to be put to sleep. There are also photos of exotic spa resorts that she is dreaming about visiting one day. A post from the week before, entitled "Joy and Rapture" reveals that Van just found out that she is 3 weeks pregnant, which should provide interesting fodder for future posts as she goes through the process of having a baby for the first time. Having never been to South Africa myself, it would have been nice if her posts included some more information and anecdotes about Cape Town life. Visually the blog is simple but still has some fun features in the left column, including a countdown to her birthday, a world map, weather stats and a Google search bar. Overall Van's Brain Bubbles are interesting, short and to the point. Her writing provides insight into her daily life with a unique voice that should entice visitors into reading more than just one post. This site was reviewed on 2005-01-04 by Tara.They felt this site belonged in the Personal category.Tara felt that Brain Bubbles deserved a rating of 3.25.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005


She's gettin' scrap fever folks! I really, really hope that they have cool totes such as this one for sale at this conference, because I really, really want one! My scrapstash is over flowing out of my current holdall. Posted by Hello

Holy Cripes its hot!

Well it's still 'Africa Hot', considering this is Africa, it's kind of stating the obvious! I guess since I'm in Africa, I'd have to call it 'Middle East hot', as I am told that one knows nothing of real heat until you've been to Riyaad, or Dubai, or anywhere else in the middle east. I just had an actual telephone conversation (yes we really spoke) with the goddess over at Wind Spirit. Yes folks its true! The pantheon can now be reached for the low low price of just R1.30 per minute. We were liasing liaseing liazing, checking with one another which classes we're going to book for our Scrapbooking conference thingy that we're going to, and I managed to get us a room rate of 50% off for the night. (Because I'm a legend (travel agent). So we going to be scrapping in our jammies. It's so cool that we are going to stay over there - as we both live at least 30km from the venue, and driving before and after a hard days scrapping is just not fun. I am kinda getting excited about it! We'll have to find some net access at the hotel to blog about the proceedings, or about how much wine we're drinking. Oh hell, I just remembered I can't drink wine for the next 8 months. Aw crap. Ok, so I'll blog about all the great mineral water I'll be drinking WOO-HOO!

Monday, January 03, 2005

Alive and Blogging

Alive and Blogging. Posted by Hello Hidy ho blog neighbors! I'm ba-ack! Let me summarize the last 10 days or so, because so much has happened. The really important stuff you already know - i.e. am pregnant, and Snowy passed on. Going back to Christmas day, I recieved really nice scrapbook related presents, including a fiskars paper trimmer, and two vouchers for this ace scrapbook store, which I promptly went absolutely balistic on, and spent the whole lot and more on cardstock, paper, a coluzzle, a square punch and couple of stickers and pens etc. My scrap stuff is now really building up which is great. For New Years Eve we spent a really nice relaxed evening with friends and I was at home in bed by 11h30! So far the only 'effects' of pregnancy that I am feeling is quite heavy fatigue. But it comes and goes. The OTHER big news is... the SIL and her husband are coming back to South Africa!!! After less than a month in the UK, they have both decided that they prefer it here and in fact the SIL and grandchild will be here tommorrow night. Her hubby will follow in a month or two when all their affairs are wrapped up there. I really hope that they 'give it horns' this time around and that her hubby adjusts better this time. He's been getting some good career experience over there, so perhaps he will find it easier to get a job over here this time.